


Back Pay

by Afiakate



Category: Spooks | MI-5
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-18
Updated: 2013-03-18
Packaged: 2017-12-05 16:31:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/725427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Afiakate/pseuds/Afiakate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucas North spent eight years in a Russian prison. Here's what those past eight years meant, monetarily.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Back Pay

**Author's Note:**

> Written years ago and originally posted at LJ and ff.net. "Spooks" belongs to Kudos and not me.

First he bought a watch, with a simple black leather strap and a gleaming silver face. His minister father would have approved. It was plain and startlingly expensive and nicer than any watch he had owned before. The watch was pleasantly heavy, and he enjoyed pulling it from his bedside table each morning, seeing the deepening groove in the leather of the strap. He enjoyed wrapping it around his wrist where it set closely, covering the tattoo there.

His simple, beautiful watch is smeared with blood after the Russians shoot him. "Tick tick tick" Connie more derisive and taunting and caustic than any passage of time, whether spent in a jail cell or a stale was time but a means of defining things he had lost? It hardly mattered at that point; all that mattered was that they must beat time.

And then they did, just.

******

The woman from Human Resources had a smile in her eyes as she slid the paperwork across the dark desk to him. Her lips parted into a full grin, crow's feet prominent around her eyes, deep creases around her lips; her thick, well-manicured finger was pointing to a specific line.

Lucas had simply frowned. Each lost year, each lost breath, each day he spent drowning, each drop of ink marking him, each shame and abuse endured, every dirty retaliation or retribution, each day he longed for his wife but was dually thankful that she could not see him, every day that he doubted himself, every day that this faith in himself and in this country slackened, each day leading him to what he is now – it was all there. Seventeen pages of paperwork, a bit of arithmetic, and a final monetary amount of what the past eight years meant.

******

After they beat time, after Connie blew up sans uranium, Lucas went to hospital. The A&E department at St. Thomas' Hospital is bustling and noisy, but Lucas finds himself being seen immediately. He suspects Ros is to thank for this small blessing, even as the smell of antiseptic makes his stomach turn. He has no option but to lay quietly while a doctor, Sophie something or other, debrides the gunshot wound and stitches him up. He knows that as soon as he leaves someone will have her sign the Official Secrets Act; he knows that he won't be making the follow-up appointment the nurse comes in to schedule.

They give him his wallet and watch back in a plastic bag. The watch still has his blood on it, he realizes, as do with the knuckles of his hands, the creases of his palms. The red of his blood is going brown on his hands, and crusting along the watchband. He begins to scrape away the blood with his thumbnail as he leaves the hospital.

******

After the watch, he started replacing his music collection, one CD at a time. He had no idea what had happened to his previous collection, simply assumed that Elizabeta had kept it, or had got rid of it. She had rid herself of so many things.

Lucas spends an evening in the music shop near his flat in Clapham. The shop smells like patchouli and vinyl, most likely owing to the large used record section; Lucas finds the smell restful. He thumbs through the huge selection, and his fingers often come away tacky and bearing the residue of so many other hands. He picks up Lee Dorsey, Chopin, The Who, Cream, Blur, Paul Leonard-Morgan, Armstrong, and Jimi Hendrix, which he will use to fill his too-quiet flat.

The shop clerk is a smiley girl with a boisterous laugh and a full sleeve of tattoos on her right arm (why would anyone do that voluntarily, he wonders). She jokes that he is keeping the music stores of London in business.

"Fuckin' iTunes," she mutters as she rings him up. Lucas is completely lost, but does his best to give a knowing smile.

Two days later, after a music-filled weekend, Lucas asks Jo what iTunes is.

"It's a way of storing music files, see," Jo is happy to be the one providing intel, "so you don't have to buy CDs. You can just download the music and listen to it on your computer."

Lucas remembers running with his Discman, and asks Jo if they're still available.

"I don't know. You could just get an iPod." She pulls a slim metallic device from her desk drawer and hands it to him.

Lucas wanders back over to his desk and fiddles with the device for the next five minutes. It is so light and fragile feeling. It takes him three minutes just to figure out how to turn it on. There is no power switch, no obvious on/off option, just a small bar that must be toggled.

He gives it back to Jo with a smile. His mobile is troublesome enough.

******

He goes back to the music store the next week. He purchases Massive Attack, the Beatles, Journey, Devo, Sex Pistols, David Bowie, Placebo, Smashing Pumpkins, Supergrass. He is constantly surprising himself with his selections. He finds that his tastes have expanded, become less hindered by any sort of actual preference for a certain sound. He just wants noise in his flat. The radio is too much like the dirge of imprisoned voices, so he pulls more and more CDs from their racks.

"Ray Davies. Cool." The tattooed girl is working again, ringing up his purchases. "I love the Kinks." She smiles at him and Lucas feels a grinding in this stomach, reminiscent of anxiety but also excitement. He's made a connection, no matter how tenuous and barely present, and it has nothing to do with Russia, with Sugarhorse, with prison, with his ex-wife, with torture, with bombs, with young men and old women blowing themselves to bits. He is surprised at how pleased he is to share some common ground – no matter how minute – with this disheveled, loud, tattooed girl.

He knows a grin is splayed across his face and, flustered, can only manage to get the words "Right, thanks" out before walking out the door.

******

When he sees Elizabeta swing the small boy up into an embrace, he feels a coldness within himself. When he enters their house (he wouldn't consider it breaking and entering, not strictly) he pulls the boy's drawing from the fridge. The coldness returns, and tickles at his throat this time. A thought pounds, unbidden and unwanted, through his head. "He should have been my child, he should have been my s-" He stops, composes himself when he hears Elizabeta open the front door.

He donates a large sum to Save the Children the next day.

******

Dark shirts make sense. They provide the most effective tattoo coverage, and blend in with the grim weather he has returned home to. With a few pairs of jean, Lucas finds himself set, sartorially. He realizes, however, that he should have a suit or two; once at his tailors he finds himself agreeing to take a third.

The shop is discreetly bespoke, with a dim window display of silk ties and blazers. Lucas feels out of place, but this is nothing new since returning to England. This time it is his Northern accent, his jeans, and his tattoos that have him feeling adrift. The tailor doesn't even try to be subtle as he takes Lucas' measurements.

The suits fit so well, though, that Lucas buys a fourth.

******

When he starts to feel restless again, he buys a car. Certainly not a necessary purchase as he lives just a few blocks up from the Clapham Common tube station, but the money is just sitting there, wanting to be spent.

The saloon car is dark blue, and fast; six speed, with servotronic steering and control. It has a dark interior and smoked windows and Lucas hesitates, thinking it is all a bit obvious. After one test drive, though, he is sold. The Service's Lexus had nothing on his new car.

He imagines taking the car on a long drive, up the country, out of the South. He would stop once he reaches the small stone house in the midst of a Cumbrian pasture. He sees each detail of the house. The hedges with their verdant spread, pretty even in their unkempt state, the small flower patch with the struggling roses, and of course, the ever-encroaching gorse. He sees each flagstone leading to the front door, and a similar path snaking around the house. One flagstone is etched in a childish hand, LN, a boy's attempt to leave a mark on his bit of the world. The front door is wooden and heavy, and he remembers exactly how much pressure will be necessary to push it open.

Lucas drives to Norfolk instead, and spends the day looking at the gray North Sea.


End file.
